Leckie (History/University of Central Florida) deftly discerns
Elizabeth Custer's central role in the making of the Custer legend,
thus simultaneously celebrating a strong woman and deflating a
frontier hero. When George Armstrong Custer was killed in 1876
during the battle of Little Bighorn, his wife, Elizabeth, was only
in her mid-30s. Childless, she inherited a mass of debts - Custer
was a notorious gambler - and the charge of securing her husband's
reputation. Custer, the Union's daring boy general, had throughout
his short life inspired either great affection or visceral dislike
among his fellow soldiers. His death on the battlefield provided an
opportunity for both his admirers and his detractors to define his
place in history. To his critics, the battle, in which 210 of
Custer's men lost their lives, was typical of the man's ambition
and vanity - he would do anything to advance himself. In letters to
the secretary of war, Custer's detractors accused the general of
disobeying orders and indulging in reckless behavior - but they
soon came up against Elizabeth, who, devotedly enduring all the
privations of army life on the frontier, had accompanied her
husband to Texas and out to the West. Widely respected and admired,
she would soon silence the critics as she devoted the rest of her
long life - she died in 1933 - to creating and maintaining the
legend of her beloved "Autie," whom she eloquently extolled in
well-received memoirs and lectures. Leckie records all the relevant
biographical and historical events: the couple's courtship in
Michigan; Custer's Civil War exploits; his postwar campaigns; the
pair's married life, not always idyllic (Custer was a flirt as well
as a gambler); and changing contemporary attitudes to the general's
once heroic status. An admirably researched, well-wrought portrait
of a talented woman who attained literary fame, financial
independence, and - by shaping her husband's image and keeping his
name alive - her "heart's desire." (Kirkus Reviews)
Georger Armstrong Custer's death in 1876 at the Battle of the
Little Big Horn left Elizabeth Bacon Custer a thirty-four-year-old
widow who was deeply in debt. By the time she died fifty-seven
years later she had achieved economic security, recognition as an
author and lecturer, and the respect of numerous public figures.
She had built the Custer legend, an idealized image of her husband
as a brilliant military commander and a family man without personal
failings. In Elizabeth Bacon Custer and the Making of a Myth,
Shirley A. Leckie explores the life of "Libbie," a frontier army
wife who willingly adhered to the social and religious restrictions
of her day, yet used her authority as model wife and widow to
influence events and ideology far beyond the private sphere.
General
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